fic: eir's tomorrow (ff7) - ch.9

[jukeboxhound_backup]

Slightly revised version.  Short explanation here.

Eir's Tomorrow
Chapter 9

Author: jukeboxhound 
Co-conspirator/beta: artimusdin 

FF7 || R || Sephiroth/Cloud || chapter: 6,300 words
The Planet isn't willing to let death take away its greatest weapon. If Cloud can't save the past, then he'll be damned to watch history repeat itself.

9.

The urge to lie down and cry himself to sleep was a tempting voice in the back of Cloud's head. Too big, too much, it was saying. Too big and too much and there are three generals this time around, what could you possibly do to change things? At this rate you're gonna get disappeared by the Turks.

He adjusted his fireman's hold on Tseng so he wouldn't topple over and started down the path that threaded back towards Banora village. He should probably wait for Zack, but he had a feeling that if Zack was as close to Angeal as he'd implied then the two probably needed a few minutes. It was slow going, maneuvering the trail without dropping the Turk, but eventually he made it back to the houses and the one occupied one. Gillian Hewley opened the door and gasped when she found an exhausted Cloud and his burden on her doorstep.

"I'm sorry, Mrs Hewley, but Tseng needs a place to recover. Do you mind if we wait here for Lieutenant Fair to return?"

"N-no, no, of course not." She opened the door wider to let him in, then shut it and hurried to lay a blanket over the sofa. Cloud managed to slide Tseng off his shoulder without banging anything on the wooden furniture and got the Turk into some semblance of a comfortable position. He didn't have a Libra materia to do a proper scan, but he could tell that Genesis' Fire attack had been much stronger than the Turk expected.

"What happened?" Mrs Hewley asked softly.

"Genesis." He glanced up in time to see a painful moue twist her lips before she smoothed her expression again. "You know that ShinRa's going to come after you, right?"

"I knew that the moment I heard Genesis had gone missing," the old woman said with a sad smile, and Cloud's eyes narrowed, both thoughtful and suspicious, then he shook his head at himself minutely. He was letting his paranoia get the better of him. But an insidious voice whispered, Sephiroth's human mother let herself be used in Hojo's experiments, what is there to say that Gillian wouldn't?

"Then why are you still here?" In an empty village, he didn't bother to add.

"There are some things you can't outrun," she said quietly.

Cloud had to bite down on a sudden burst of anger. Maybe it was a hypocritical reaction, but damn it he'd learned to survive; to stay behind and passively wait for death in an empty village…

"True, but ShinRa isn't one of those things," he replied flatly. "If nothing else, get out of here for Angeal's sake. He's already lost his best friend, he doesn't need to lose his mother, too."

"And where would a regular trooper have me go?" Her voice wasn't malicious or condescending, just tired and honest and perhaps actually curious.

If she died on Cloud's advice, General Hewley could legitimately blame him, but on the other hand, he'd apparently been willing to leave her behind. (And where were you when Nibelheim burned?)

"My hometown is a small village in the mountains. It has a reactor in it, but it's easy to hide there."

"I could put your village in danger," she pointed out mildly.

"Well, it's not a totally altruistic suggestion," he said wryly. "I'll tell you how to get there if you're willing to keep an eye on things. The ShinRa mansion was destroyed, but the reactor is still active."

"What makes you think ShinRa might do something?"

"Why do you think they'll destroy Banora?"

She gave him a brief, tired smile. "What makes you think I'll keep my word?"

"I spent the entire flight from Midgar listening to Lieutenant Fair talking about how honor is an integral part of General Hewley. I'm hoping he got that from his mother."

When she smiled again, it was so bittersweet that Cloud was reminded of his mother's darker days, the days when she looked at him and saw 'husband' instead of 'son' and her reflection in the mirror was a young, beautiful woman. "I will do my best to help, Private Strife."

She listened patiently as he told her the best way to get to the western continent and that the only way to get into Nibelheim itself without walking or riding was the supply route that came in from Rocket Town. Cloud managed to give her the most important information before he sensed Tseng waking up, and he schooled his expression into something neutral, missing the woman's sharp gaze.

Tseng went from unconscious to awake in seconds like a flipped switch. His dark eyes immediately found Cloud and Angeal's mother.

"Mrs Hewley," he said politely, sitting up and absently straightening his suit as if he did this sort of thing every day. He was doing an incredible job hiding the exhaustion that came with trying to recover from a magic attack. "Private Strife."

"Sir," Cloud saluted sharply. "You were incapacitated by a magic attack from General Rhapsodos before he disappeared. I brought you back here to recover. Lieutenant Fair remained behind with General Hewley and hasn't yet returned."

"I was under the impression that there was no one left in the village."

Cloud was silent, but Tseng didn't appear to expect an answer. He stood carefully and bowed respectfully to Mrs Hewley. "Thank you for allowing us the use of your home, ma'am."

"Of course."

Awkward moment much? the old Zack-voice in his head dryly commented. Then the real Zack chose that moment to knock on the door, red-faced and panting.

"I've been looking all over for you guys! C'mon!"

The flight back to Midgar was silent. Mrs Hewley had waved them off with a quiet, "I'll be fine," giving Cloud a knowing half-smile, and Zack appeared too…haunted? Brooding?...to notice. Tseng was at the helicopter's controls again, face unreadable. Cloud had no idea what the Turk was thinking.

Did I mess up? But of course there was no way to know, and Cloud kept quiet on the seat beside Zack, unable to help sneaking glances at him. Zack never looked back.

He absently wrapped a hand around his mother's necklace and told himself that Zack had been hit with a lot today, he just needed time to absorb it all and then Cloud could work on (re)building a friendship. He wouldn't take Zack for granted this time around, not that he ever really had, even if this time around Zack wasn't quite –

No, no, Zack was Zack, even if the man that had once taken up a large part of Cloud's mind would've done more than stand and stare. Maybe the SOLDIER was a bit more immature than he remembered, but that didn't mean anything. Even Aeris hadn't been the same. If people were different and if Sephiroth wasn't the only general anymore, it was only because Cloud was fucking around with things and, Planet, was he playing god with people's lives?

"Planet to Cloud!" Zack said loudly, surprising the blond and making a hand reflexively reach for a sword he wasn't wearing. Zack was still too pale, too uncertain, under his friendly smile, and Cloud hated it. "We're back in Midgar, kiddo, Tseng's already hauled ass back inside. Make sure you report to your commanding officer, yeah? I'll be seeing you around!"

And then Cloud was alone in a silent helicopter, Zack already half-jogging away before he could say anything.

Cloud's grip on the carved materia was so tight he could feel its corners pressing painfully into his palm through his leather gloves. Letting out a long breath, he forced himself to let go and tuck it under his shirt again before pulling himself out of the cramped helicopter. Technicians scurried back and forth across the helipad, ignoring him as he headed towards the entrance that would take him down to the recruit barracks.

First things first. He was drained, mentally and physically; he needed to sleep. He should probably report to Commander Gysahl first, but he was too damn tired to even pretend he cared.

…

Sephiroth stared blankly at Zack's mission report.

Private Strife was professional,it said.He knows his way around a rifle well enough that it'd take something serious to make him mess up. He appeared confident acting with and without orders.

And what, precisely, did that mean? From what the rest of the report said, everything had gone relatively smoothly, even with the appearance of Genesis (see, sooner or later they all leave you) and Tseng's subsequent casualty. According to the report, the three had come across the two wayward generals while investigating an old warehouse, Genesis had attacked and brought Tseng down before Angeal interfered, and the other two generals were gone again. Considering how Zack typically wrote up his reports, this was too sterile, too cleanly cut.

Something had happened, not the least because there was only a brief mention of Angeal's presence when normally Zack went on at great length about him. Sephiroth had certainly teased Angeal about the kid's hero-worship on a few occasions. He was used to reading between the lines of his men's mission reports - it was near suicide to be completely honest in this company - but there were too many variables for him to guess at, particularly with the mostly unknown Cloud Strife. On the surface it appeared that his and Gysahl's little test had worked: Strife had performed well in the company of a SOLDIER and a Turk, and for a cadet to do so was encouraging indeed. But why did he now have more questions than answers?

Sephiroth calmly straightened the papers on his desk, lining up his pen parallel to the edge of the blotter. He knew that this cadet – sixteen, according to the boy's file, but one look at the mugshot told him that was obviously bullshit – was not his Cloud. His Cloud hadn't even been real, was just the product of a mako delirium. There was probably a scientific explanation for the physical resemblance (mirror-image), and no doubt his growing obsession could be explained by a textbook.

It was late enough in the evening that most employees had gone, leaving only a few officers still loitering around. It was a rare quiet that was suddenly broken by a presence that Sephiroth would recognize anywhere on the Planet. Checking a sharp breath, wiping his expression clean, he said clearly, "Come in."

Angeal entered his office without opening the door. Both of his wings, one smaller than the other, arched from his right shoulder and brushed the floor with their pinion feathers.

("You're my angel!")

"Angeal," Sephiroth said calmly, his heart fluttering like a caged bird. "This is…unexpected."

The man's eyes were sharp, but as lifeless as they'd been on the Wutai battlefields.

"…Do you remember the time we had to talk Genesis out of killing Hojo?" came the non sequitur.

"Yes." Sephiroth had spent nearly two weeks in a coma from whatever new thing Hojo had tried out on him. It'd sent Genesis into a furious rage that ended up nearly destroying the entire Plate. It had taken days to convince him that killing the doctor might be worse in the long run than letting him live; no one else knew their biology as well as he, not even Hollander, and Genesis was already showing unusual symptoms. On the plus side, Hojo had been more careful in his tests.

"I see now that I made a mistake. Then, and now," Angeal murmured, holding Sephiroth's gaze. "And in the process, I hurt one of my closest friends."

Sephiroth merely pressed his fingertips together and regarded the other general over the top of them with half-lidded eyes. After a moment Angeal gave him an empty half-smile. "You sent Zack after us, didn't you?"

Sephiroth remained silent. Angeal broke eye contact to look somewhere on the far wall.

"And did you also choose to send that particular trooper for a reason?" Something must have changed in Sephiroth's body language because Angeal continued, "He said that angels can hurt just as much as humans."

("What's it like being an angel?"

"It's like being human."

"How so?"

"Angels can hurt just as much humans can.")

"What?" Sephiroth said numbly.

"He also knew about Jenova. What's going on, Sephiroth? What's being kept from us?"

Sephiroth stood up and walked over to the window, turning his back on the other man. "We all have secrets, Angeal," and while more dramatic than he liked, it was certainly true enough.

There was a moment of silence. He sensed Angeal moving towards him, something in his bones singing more loudly the closer their bodies were until Angeal's breath came quietly by his ear.

"Genesis is dying, Sephiroth," Angeal murmured. "He's decaying, while the both of us are stronger than ever. He thought that Jenova would be his best chance, and so did I. So I followed him. What else would you have had me do?"

"You think I wouldn't have left ShinRa for you two?" Sephiroth replied just as softly, and felt Angeal jerk in surprise.

"Sephiroth, I…"

"I spoke with Hojo not long after Genesis left Wutai. The man is insufferably proud of himself and seems to think Genesis' condition is because Hollander made a mistake somewhere. However, I think Hojo truly doesn't know why this is happening, or he would've either used it against Hollander or taken Genesis as his own experiment. I wasn't able to access Genesis' records myself."

"Hollander never gave Hojo any record of Project G, as far as I know," Angeal admitted after a moment of quiet, "and Genesis has destroyed all the hard copies he could find. If any more exist, they're with Hollander."

"Then we are at an impasse," Sephiroth finished flatly. He absently wished the night sky was visible through the light pollution of Midgar; then he might have something to look at through his office window other than the upper Plate. "Only Hojo knows exactly where Jenova is, assuming Jenova's cells would help at all."

Genesis is dying.

He was the most arrogant and infuriating man Sephiroth had ever known, but they were the same. Both conceived in laboratories, both born to serve the military, both practically gods in power but still human at heart. Genesis and Angeal had always been the closest among the three of them, and Sephiroth. Well. He'd been content to guard that, to let himself briefly sink into their world while knowing he'd never really be a part of it.

They weren't supposed to die. Not in battle, when they were at their most powerful and ruthless, and not of old age, as though they were normal people. That Genesis was dying, that they really weren't invincible or above such mundane, mortal things… And it was darkly ironic that, of them all, Genesis was the one that had least wanted to be human. You were right, Cloud.

"I'm sorry, Sephiroth," whispered Angeal, sounding like a man who'd lost everything.

Part of Sephiroth wanted to turn around and pull Angeal into an embrace. Another part sneered and also whispered, You only say that because you failed. One day, they all leave.

So he moved back towards his desk and deftly fished out both Zack's mission report and Strife's file. When he spoke, his voice was cool and businesslike, even if he couldn't quite look at Angeal. "My decision to send Private Strife to Banora was made in conjunction with Commander Gysahl. One of the doctors of the regular army saw fit to inform me of the boy's condition; apparently he fell into a mako pool as a child and survived. Both his blood tests and his physical performance scores support this story, but he seems to have a talent for insubordination."

Angeal was silently walking back around to the front of Sephiroth's desk, his smaller wing giving a small twitch of tension. Sephiroth went on, "Because he's a candidate for SOLDIER, both myself and Commander Gysahl wanted to send him on recon with an actual SOLDIER to see if he could act as part of a group."

"He fought and threatened Genesis," said Angeal.

"…What?"

"I assume you know the gist of what happened." When Sephiroth nodded, Angeal went on, "After Genesis knocked out Tseng, I tried to interfere, but…Strife, you said?...took him by surprise with weapons he'd taken off the clones."

Sephiroth stared at him.

"Somehow he knew that we were looking for Jenova. I don't know what he said to Genesis afterwards, but Genesis is refusing to speak." Not even to me, were the unspoken words.

Cloud always did have a certain intensity, he mused, not quite kindly. "Strife is fortunate that Tseng didn't witness that," Sephiroth replied slowly. "It's obvious that more is going on with him than his story suggests, but I would prefer to keep the Turks out of this. And Heidegger, for that matter."

"What about Lazard?"

"The man has enough to worry about as it is." Sephiroth laid down the files he was holding, absently straightening them again. Angeal didn't miss the little compulsive actions. "I will confront Strife myself and judge his answers before taking action."

"You know, Zack called him 'Cloud'."

Sephiroth's shoulders tightened. "Yes. His name is Cloud Strife," he answered stiffly.

"That's not a very common name."

"That just makes it an improbable coincidence, not an impossible one."

Angeal didn't press the issue, but Sephiroth was already regretting the moment of adolescent weakness when he'd woken in the middle of the night and Angeal asked him what his nightmare was about. And Sephiroth had answered truthfully, told him about the angel he'd had as a child, the way he probably wouldn't have if Genesis had been there and not away on a solo mission.

("You would have an angel called 'strife', Sephiroth.")

…

Elena's absence the day after he returned from his mission was noticed, but Cloud let it go. If there was something else bothering her, then he'd find out soon enough. Probably with screamed curses and a blow to the head.

His report to Gysahl was unremarkable, the commander listening and asking few questions before dismissing him. He was given the rest of the day off, which meant that Sergeant Tokka would be drilling him into the parade ground the next day. Cloud couldn't muster up the motivation to care.

With nothing else to do but study for subjects in which he already had practical experience, he pulled on a worn pair of jeans and a plain, faded black shirt and slipped off to the train station. He was unremarkable enough to pass under the Plate without much trouble.

He was surprised to find an unusually high amount of tension in Wall Market. People cast suspicious glances everywhere, jumping at any loud noise; Cloud made sure to walk in a slouch rather than with military strides and that the knife in his boot was hidden but accessible. On one of the steel walls of the sector someone had crudely spray-painted SHINRA AUTHORITY IS SHINRA OPPRESSI-. The last two letters trailed off abruptly, as though the vandal had been unexpectedly interrupted.

I know it's been a few weeks since I last saw Vincent, but what the hell did I miss? Through code and covert use of their respective phones, he wasn't expecting to meet up with Vincent for another few days. No, he was on a different mission, but the tension was making him uneasy.

Now that it wasn't dark and Elena wasn't along to drag him anywhere, Cloud could appreciate the sight of the new, unmarred SEVENTH HEAVEN sign. Because it was only late morning the bar was empty, rows of salvaged tables and chairs with cleaning supplies sitting untouched on one of them.

("Tifa, get the kids down behind the bar! You there, cover the fucking window before they get through!")

Cloud took a moment to brace himself against a table and wait for his head to clear of Plague-shadows and children's screams.

"What do you want?"

The sudden voice made him twitch, and he looked up to find a woman with short brown hair staring at him, grey eyes flat and unsympathetic. She was smaller than Cloud, dressed in a green tunic, long shorts, and heavy black boots. He didn't immediately see a weapon, but he had no doubt that she had finished her fair share of battles. It took a bit of mental searching, but he finally recognized her as the bartender he'd seen

(the One Who Will Burn the World, said the Planet)

when Elena brought him here. "Looking for something to bury my troubles," he finally replied.

"We're not open for business."

"I just need something cold. All-natural."

Her eyes sharpened at the oblique reference to AVALANCHE. There was something other about her that was singing on his nerves – nothing like a SOLDIER's mako, more like the living shadows that clung to Vincent, or Aeris' sense of oldness.

"…We haven't had anything like that in a while," the bartender finally replied.

"Why not?"

But the woman was already turning away and heading back towards the counter, dismissing him as coolly as any military officer. "Go home, boy."

"Please," he said, following her. "Please. I need your help."

She paused by the counter, glancing at him over her shoulder. "I told you, we don't have anything like that anymore."

"The people and the Wutaian rebels are too busy resenting each other to actually do anything," Cloud started bluntly, perhaps stupidly so, but he needed her to listen. She was the only potential link to AVALANCHE that he knew of. "But AVALANCHE was founded by people from all over."

"You want to turn the conflict with ShinRa into a racial war?" she asked mildly.

"No, I want to see AVALANCHE give the Wutaians and the Midgar people a reason to work together."

She turned to face him more fully, a little more receptive. "AVALANCHE doesn't exist anymore. There's no one left to fight. People died, the reactors still stand. The Turks…" She stopped.

Cloud tilted his head, wondering what the Turks had done to successfully break up the first incarnation of AVALANCHE. He hadn't bothered finding out much about the organization's history when he'd been hired on by Barret, and he hadn't inherited many of Zack's memories about it.

The woman seemed to mentally shake herself and stare at him impassively. "Why do you care about this?"

"I'm…afraid for the Planet," he said carefully.

"Bullshit. Get out."

"I'm not lying."

"No, all ShinRa cadets are secretly concerned for the life of the Planet," she deadpanned.

Cloud briefly closed his eyes. This would all be so much easier if he could just track down the Black Materia and blow the hell out of ShinRa and its reactors, or march into the president's office and threaten him with utter oblivion in the Lifestream.

"Do you know the work that's being done in Cosmo Canyon?" he asked with a sudden burst of inspiration. Suspicion pinched her lips as she nodded slowly. "A researcher from there came to my village because we have a lot of mako pools. He told me about what was happening to the Planet because of the reactors. I didn't really believe him at first, but after I joined the ShinRa army, I started thinking he was right. Why else would we be sent out to kill all these monsters that didn't even exist even a few years ago?"

He wasn't being entirely untruthful. Through the haze that hung over his memories of that year chasing Sephiroth, he remembered he hadn't cared about the Planet the first time they passed through Cosmo Canyon and Bugenhagen had shown them his extraordinary observatory.

Cloud, knowing he was hardly a good liar, tried to emphasize that little bit of truth, and it seemed to work. At least the woman hadn't yet thrown him out. "Even if you're telling the truth," she said tonelessly, "that doesn't change the facts. AVALANCHE fell apart about two years ago when its leader tried to destroy mankind so that the Planet would no longer face that threat."

He inhaled sharply. Why didn't I know anything like that was happening!

"The Turks were the one to stop him. Certain benefactors decided that they couldn't afford to fund an operation so unstable, so AVALANCHE was forced to disband before more permanent damage could be done."

'Certain benefactors'?

There was distance in the bartender's eyes when she continued, "This conflict isn't as black-and-white as you would make it, kid. It's not just ShinRa versus the Planet. It's also quality of life versus quality of integrity, people who want to fight for their ideals and those who just want to feed their families. Even if you brought down ShinRa, what then? It's the largest single employer in the world and produces the most reliable and affordable source of energy to heat our homes. It doesn't matter if people like ShinRa or not, they're not going to sacrifice their jobs and lifestyles for some unknown future."

"If the Planet dies, then they won't have to worry about that anyway," he pointed out, but she simply shrugged.

"Would it better to live a shorter life with a greater quality of life, or a longer one in struggle and unhappiness?"

"This isn't like that at all," Cloud said flatly; all he could think about was the Plague that was Jenova's legacy, spreading through the world like a black fungus that turned food into poison and the dead into mindless, savage caricatures of life. "ShinRa isn't a disease. The real question is whether people will be happy living shorter lives in safety or potentially longer ones in freedom. If they stick with safety, then the Planet's going to end that much sooner."

She didn't speak right away. The lean muscle in her forearms flexed smoothly under her pale skin as she idly moved the dishrag between her hands.

"There's nothing I can do," she finally said, and turned away. "If you want answers, go talk to Rufus ShinRa."

What?

"And who should I say referred me?" he demanded to her disappearing back.

"Elfé."

He left the newly founded Seventh Heaven and stood on the street, feeling like it was only a matter of time before he once again saw its sign saying SEVENTH HE- while children screamed at death inside. People pushed past him on all sides, unaware of the vision of smoky ruins he was seeing laid over their sectors, the broken bodies, the cries.

It was almost enough to make someone an atheist, Cloud thought cynically, hands in his pockets as he stared down the crowded street. For a moment he craved a cigarette, one of the ones that Cid had chain-smoked and Cloud had tried once or twice out of curiosity. The taste was revolting, but it'd given his hands something to do.

He should probably figure out what to do now. He could go back to the bar and beg Elfé for help. He could track down other former members of AVALANCHE and try his sob-story on them. He could hope and pray that Vincent would be getting somewhere with the Wutai rebels. He could simply lie down and die and let everyone else deal with the consequences of their collective actions, because damn if he hadn't already done his job several times over. Except he couldn't, because then Sephiroth, Aeris, and Zack would all die.

It would be so easy to hate them for that.

"Shit," he muttered.

It was late afternoon by the time Cloud climbed to the top of an abandoned half-constructed building, high and close enough to the edge of the sector for natural light to break under the shadow of the Plate. He sat on the middle of a steel girder, legs dangling into empty space a hundred meters above the ground, and leaned into the wind channeled by the curve of the Plate's underside. Harder to hear and feel the Planet that high, supported by little more than a half-foot width of metal and shifting air currents. Just a little closer to freedom, in the sky or in death.

The pollution in the city made for a stunningly vivid orange-red-purple sunset.

It was well past twilight by the time he finally dropped back down to the street. When he went back to the barracks Elena still wasn't around, so he asked one of his squadmates in the mess hall.

"Hey, Small," he called, ignoring the surprised looks that earned from the rest of the table. He wasn't exactly prone to socializing.

The brawny seventeen-year-old blinked at him a few times. "Yeah?"

"Have you seen Elena?"

The other boys hooted and leered ("What's the matter, Strife, can't keep your girlfriend?") while Small flushed. "Haven't seen her since Tokka ran us into the fucking ground."

"Yeah, I think the old bastard misses your pretty face, Strife," snorted another. Joe, maybe? Or John. Something simple. Maybe it was time Cloud started paying attention if he didn't even know the guy's name, only that he was eyeing the chocobo-rider division. "He looked pissier than my mum did during menopause."

"Oh gods, thanks for that mental image, asshole," someone groaned.

"Thanks," Cloud said dryly and left his squad to argue over whose momma was nastier. After a quick meal of what was supposed to be chicken and rice but looked more like the clotted pale gunk Cid scraped out of the Highwind's engines, he slipped back to the barracks and changed into some gym clothes. With Elena still nowhere to be found, he finally gave up stalling and left for the training rooms.

It was populated but not crowded, just the remains of the pre-dinner rush. Cloud set himself up with the machines, preferring to wait until there were fewer people before taking out one of the practice swords. With none of the notoriety that he'd had in his previous life and none of the SOLDIER-like attributes Hojo had given him, it was easy for Cloud to get lost among the shuffle of the normal troopers. He was just another kid, trying to reach for a nearly impossible dream.

Time passed quickly once he allowed himself to get lost in the repetitive motions of the strength machines, pausing every so often to stretch, and before long there were only a few people left. Then four, then two, and finally Cloud was alone and free to take down one of the blunt-edged steel swords meant to be used only by more experienced cadets. He swung it in a lazy circle with one hand, making a face at the poor balance and make.

I really need to replace Tsurugi.

Cloud hadn't allowed fourteen years growing up all over again in Nibelheim to dull his skill. He'd trained first with sticks and later with carved staves to retrain old reflexes and muscle memory into his new body (and maybe that was why Elfé hadn't been fooled by his civilian cover, it was hard to hide training that his body had literally grown into.) He'd practiced with small knives and then larger knives, and because it wasn't always guaranteed that there would be a weapon close at hand he'd let himself be punched and thrown around by Tifa and Master Zangan. When he'd gotten a little older, he'd found the best way to learn how to hunt and prowl was by observing a certain Nibel wolf as he stalked rabbits.

He still sucked at firearms. That little bit of something that was distinctly him and no one else was sadly reassuring.

And so by letting himself fall into the mindset of instinct and trusting his own body to do what it was supposed to, by already being stretched out and warmed up, he fought past the frustration of not having a proper weapon and simply moved. The sword flickered through the air like a serpent's tongue, quick and light and lethal, and Cloud followed as though it were an extension of himself.

He would have been content to do so for as long as his stamina held out and fuck the sergeant's early-morning drills anyway, but when he brought the sword down in a slashing stroke it was interrupted by another blade. The sudden movement shocked Cloud into ducking low and whirling around to bring his sword under the guard of the other's, but it was blocked once more, forcing him to take a defensive step back.

"…Sephiroth?"

The general stood tall and expressionless above him, the Masamune bare in his hand, and Cloud felt his heart stop.

…

It was one of those moments some people encountered in their lives in which the principles that provided the foundation for their whole understanding of the universe were suddenly popped like balloons, leaving them scrambling to hold on to empty air. After the Wutai War and growing up with Hojo as a father-figure, Sephiroth had been reasonably certain that there wasn't much left that could faze him. Obviously, he was wrong.

Hair as yellow and wild as a chocobo's crest, pale skin, eyes mako-blue-bright. The only difference Sephiroth could see between this young cadet and his memories of an angel was the boyish skinniness that hadn't yet grown into the more solid muscle of an adult. There was a physical, flesh-and-blood existence, no blurring around the edges or suggestion of Lifestream. No shadow of pale wings.

Sephiroth's name, spoken in a voice that was younger, higher, but still the same in all the ways that counted.

What would Gast say?

…Take a chance to believe.

"Isn't it odd, Private Strife," he said softly, "that you're not around when you're wanted, but when you're unexpected?"

He watched the subtle barb hit home through a slight jerk in the boy's thin shoulders. But instead of getting angry or flinching away, Strife just lowered the practice weapon until its point rested on the ground.

"I try to be where I'm needed," he replied, just as quietly.

Sephiroth's fist tightened around the hilt of the Masamune. "Did it never occur to you that certain individuals might need you elsewhere?"

Strife finally looked away. "Sephiroth, I – "

"I received a report about your performance on your first mission," the general went on, beginning to pace in a slow circle just to be moving. Strife's own body didn't move, just his eyes as he followed Sephiroth's path. "Not only did you act well above the expectations of myself and Commander Gysahl, but you managed to get Generals Hewley and Rhapsodos to stop and think. On the other hand, you know things that should only be known to a very select few individuals. One might wonder how that knowledge could've been used earlier, before this whole debacle."

Cloud, for his part, felt those words inflame the years-old self-doubt, am I doing this right, what if I fuck up, questions without answers that vacillated between desperation and anger and despair. He whipped around on his heel with a sharp, "I'm doing this for you!

"…I'm doing this for you," he repeated quietly, holding Sephiroth's gaze and refusing to look away again. "You…and Zack. And Aeris. No one else. The rest of the Planet could burn and I wouldn't care except that the three of you happen to live on it."

"Then abandoning children in the hands of madmen is now the mark of a hero."

Cloud twitched, felt the words like Hojo's needles under his flesh piercing veins and thoughts and hope. The mantras he'd used to keep himself sane these last fourteen years, do it right and it won't happen again, won't see Aeris' blood on your hands, won't watch Zack die to save your worthless ass, won't watch Denzel get ripped apart by Plague-infected warps – just do it right and then you can rest, no one else can ask anything else of you. Do it right –

The mantras started falling apart and Cloud stared at Sephiroth, felt something already tenuous inside of him start to unravel. Sephiroth lifted a hand to his temple, and the familiarity of the movement made Cloud automatically step forward, reach out, and the moment his hand touched the general's arm the world went

green as mako opaque thick in his lungs

red blood of genocide streaking the masamune his leather his skin

blackwhite monochrome monotony rather amusing how spending too much time in the lab could make everything else as stark and lifeless

yellowblue suninthesky but even angels leave and

he couldn't hear motherangeljenovacloud anymore

and it took an almighty wrench of will and physical strength to tear his hand away from Sephiroth, who had fallen to one knee. Both of them were panting, Sephiroth's eyes squeezed shut in pain, Cloud frozen with horror. The urge for contact, to consume, made Cloud choke on bile and holy shit it can't be Reunion, it can't, I don't have Jenova inside me anymore, it can't be, it can't.

When Sephiroth finally lifted his head, his cold expression had become utter incomprehension. Cloud didn't dare to look closer, knew that if he did he'd hear why do you keep pretending to be human, Cloud, my puppet, such a good boy.

"…Cloud?"

When the Planet had been remaking him there'd been a time, an instant or an eternity, he didn't know, but there'd been a time when he couldn't remember what it meant to speak and make meaningful sentences out of so many possible sounds. Cloud swallowed past the bile in his throat, had to do it a second time before he was able to find words.

"I – I don't. I'm sorry," he managed. "I should. I should stay away, this isn't. Isn't." Stopped. Couldn't find the right sounds.

"No, wait," Sephiroth started, but Cloud was already half-running to the door, leaving the useless sword behind.

chapter 8 || main post || chapter 10